Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Oil Pipelines: BC's Christy Clark misfires; what the Liberal Party of Canada should do

Congratulations
to Premier Clark for doing two things at the same time: starting a meaningful
dialogue about the environmental concerns behind the export of heavy oil from
Canada, and staying true to her pattern of shooting herself in the foot at the
same time.

However,
her opening gambit is one that the LPC (and other parties – nudge, nudge:
anyone got Mulcair's telephone number?) may use to build a sound tar sands
policy that takes into consideration national interest, the interests of the
First Nations, and provincial interests.

Clark
opened the battle with Premier Redford of Alberta with this
announcement of her 'principled poliicy' for oil pipelines crossing BC:

Lake laid out the five new requirements all new crude oil
pipelines will have to meet before they get provincial approval:

Completing
the environmental review process. In the case of Enbridge, that would mean
a recommendation by the National Energy Board Joint Review Panel that the
project proceed.

Deploying
world-leading marine oil-spill response, prevention and recovery systems
for B.C.'s coastline and ocean to manage and mitigate the risks and costs
of heavy oil pipelines and shipments.

Using
world-leading practices for land oil-spill prevention, response and
recovery systems to manage and mitigate the risks and costs of heavy oil
pipelines.

Addressing
legal requirements regarding aboriginal and treaty rights, and ensuring
First Nations provided with the opportunities, information and resources
necessary to participate in and benefit from a heavy-oil project.

Ensuring
British Columbia receives a fair share of the fiscal and economic benefits
of a proposed heavy oil project that reflects the level, degree and nature
of the risk borne by the province, the environment and taxpayers.

When she laid out Principle 5 (the 'Fair Share Principle'),
Clark pulled the trigger and blew her little toe off. At the rate she is going,
she will have to hobble to the polling booth come 2013 in order to cast her
very own vote at the next election.

Urged on by her advisors, Premier Clark yet again showed her
lack of gravitas as a serious politician by offering a soundbite instead of a
rationally derived policy.

She obviously wanted to pit the voters of BC against an
external enemy, in order to take the heat off her own government, and so –
following the decades old tradition of provincial premiers blaming the problems
of the world on another government (usually Ottawa) – she attacked the
Conservative government of Alberta.

And her ploy worked, so far.

The fan is whirring, the premiers are gathering, the media
is salivating like Pavlovian-trained dogs, and the temperature is rising.

On Tuesday, Premier Christy Clark said the pipeline will die
if Alberta doesn't negotiate with British Columbia over the sharing of economic
benefits.

"If Alberta doesn't decide they want to sit down and
engage, the project stops. It's as simple as that," Clark said in an
inter-view from Halifax.

"So the ball is in Alberta's court today to decide
whether or not they want to sit down."

So, Clark
would stop the pipelines running across BC unless the provincial government of
Alberta gives BC a bigger share of any income it gets from the pipeline owners.
And she would so so even though she acknowledges that the pipeline project in
question is good
for Canada:

“This project is good for Canada. It’s great for Alberta and
at the moment it’s not very good for British Columbia,” Ms. Clark said.

So Premier Clark, on behalf of the citizens of BC, would
hold to ransom a project that is good for Canada, unless Premier Redford pays
the ransom d emand.

Redford's Retort:

But Redford has politely told Clark to take a running jump,
basing her argument on constitutional grounds and practical grounds:

"From my perspective, I'm not going to sit back and
wait for the conversation to continue to be defined without ensuring that
Albertans and Canadians understand what Alberta's position is, and that is we
will continue to protect the jurisdiction we have over our energy
resources."

Zounds! Shades of Pierre Elliot Trudeau and his National
Energy Program. Clark is doing a Trudeau, seems to be the Albertan response,
and trying to muscle into provincial jurisdiction over provincial resources. To
the barricades!

Enbridge considers the request for a “fair share” of revenue
a “government-to-government issue,” and says it’s eager to discuss
environmental plans and first nations engagement with Ms. Clark’s government.

What did Premier Clark
do wrong?

She aimed at her toe instead of at real target.

The LPC could adopt the Five Principles with a serious
modification: the the polluter must pay.

The issue that Clark glimpsed but misunderstood how to
respond to, is simple: There will be oil spills and the environmental and
economic damage could be considerable.

How is this best reduced, and who pays
what to remedy the damage as much as it can be remedied?

The Sixth Principle –
Polluters Pay and Backers backstop:

If the LPC added to the Five Principles the principle that
the Polluter Pays, and defines those responsible for paying for any pollution
(the "Backers") as any commercial enterprise that has a commercial
stake in the product (the oil), the transmission system (the oil pipelines),
the shipping systems (the port facilities and tankers), then we can structure a
sound policy.

One suggestion is that we learn from the Gulf spill and BP's
handling of it. It became very clear that BP could not be trusted to be
straightforward with the governments, the public and all stakeholders when it
came to speed of response, size of response, and degree of response.

So the Sixth Principle would require the posting by all the Backers
of performance bonds by creditworthy third parties. These performance bonds
would have teeth and would work this way:

The bonds would be posted
with the federal and provincial governments by financial institutions
whose creditworthiness is undoubted.

The bonds would be for
amounts determined by a panel with members from the two government levels
and independent third party experts, with such independent parties in the
majority.

In setting the amounts of
the bonds, the Panel would include amounts to remedy oil spills, repair
economic damage to government assets, pay economic damages of all affected
stakeholders (remember the shrimp fisheries in the Gulf, whose livelihood
was so badly damaged?).

The Panel would be obliged
to review the amount of the bonds each year, and increase their amount if
needed by changing circumstances. Any failure to provide the increased
bonds would immediately lead to charges on the Backers' assets.

The bonds would be
triggered as soon as damage was done, with the Backers having to sort out
later who should pay them for any damages caused by third parties. There
should not be any delay in getting the monies needed to pay for the
damages; the courts could be used by the Backers at their leisure to sort
out who pays whom.

The financial institutions
would have to satisfy themselves that the Backers have the financial
wherewithall to pay them if the bonds are used.

How this differs from
the Clark principles:

Clark aimed at Redford's province.

Redford resisted this and told Clark to raise taxes on the
BC portion of the assets.

The oil company tried to stay as far away from the fight as
possible.

The Sixth Principle treats the whole process as
one commercial enterprise, and requires all commercial Backers to participate
in providing a meaningful solution and support. in proper amounts. and with due
speed.

7 comments
:

I don't buy any of it. Attending a secret meeting, in which we are told nothing was discussed, smells more like a bait and switch sting to me, rather than an honest outrage. These neo-con self helpers, dressed in progressive garb, should not be trusted, no matter how sincere they sound.

Cat, we have long realized that the LPC is about one step behind the CPC at selling out British Columbia. There are reasons the LPC has become utterly irrelevant to this province. I voted Liberal for four decades. Never again.

The pipeline could be built along national rail line right of ways, or go East or thru the US n.w. or or or.Path of least resistance, pay no toll.Albertan companies can find another route to get our black gold to market.

Once loaded onto tankers BC has no jurisdiction over the waterways and seabeds along the coastline, SCofC decision 1969.

Wilson, BC has an interest in keeping its coasts clean of oil spills and in having oil spills properly remedied, even though legally the federal government has jurisdiction. Dp any BC government should consider the overall picture when deciding whether to agree to any oil pipeline crossing its territory. If the BC government decides that the federal government rules are inadequate, it should take steps to prevent the pipelines being built until adequate rules and funds are provided for.

My argument in this post is that by treating the problem of heavy oil being transported from Alberta through BC and then by tanker to China etc as being a problem to be viewed solely through the prism of the parts, things get lost in the shuffle.

That's why we need a broad definition of 'Backers', to ensure that a company involved in the whole process cannot escape responsibility by claiming only to share a part of the duties to maintain proper systems and backups. Look at the whole process holistically, and deal with it as such.

The duty primarily falls on the federal government, which should adopt the 'Backer' concept in my post; my argument is that the Liberal Party of Canada should adopts such a holistic approach to heavy oil, and make sure the process works from beginning to end.

Let's not focus on the splintered system that now exists; let's be sensible and take the necessary steps before we have our very own made-in-Canada Gulf incident.

Clark's stand is great, and well-principled. Sure, it could have used some "tweaking" but too much of that and the essence of the message is lost. For idiots like Ezra Levant calling it "un-canadian" (really?? you are perhaps the most un-canadian pundit out there. American maybe...) to rednecks in Alberta calling for separation (let us know when it happens, we will have a new national holiday...beers and bc beef burgers at my place, boys!). I can only hope that her stand means something and is not mere grandstanding which would leave us even further behind. There WILL BE SPILLS. Wer all know that. My first choice is no pipeline anywhere in this great country...my distant second choice is no pipeline in BC.

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